Fiji's first takeover took place on May 15, 1987 when Lieutenant
Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka and his men charged into parliament and
took control.

The coup left the new coalition government of Timoci Bavadra,
with a large Indian membership, suddenly out of power.

Four months later, Rabuka staged a second coup, declared himself
the country's leader and announced Fiji as a republic.

A driving force behind Rabuka's coups, and a third coup in 2000,
was hostility between indigenous Fijians and the Indians who
outnumbered them.

"Ethnicity was rather more explicit then. And again it was also
it was a factor...in 2000 when Mahendra Chaudary's government was
pushed out by George Speight," says Pacific Islands historian Hugh
Laracy.

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Unlike the current coup, which has the backing of the Fijian
military, Speight led a rag-tag mob of armed militiamen in his
charge for power.

The army was forced to stand by as Speight had himself sworn in as
prime minister by a pliant President, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

He then proclaimed co-conspirator Ratu Jope Seniloli as
president in place of Mara, at which point Mara made a sudden
resignation and handed his power to the commander of the military,
Commodore Frank Bainimarama.

During his storm to power Speight took Chaudary and 35 other MPs
hostage. He released them 73 days later and the army seized
control. Speight was arrested and charged with treason.

But just four months later, soldiers in the army who had stayed
loyal to Speight staged a bloody mutiny at the army's
barracks. Eight men were killed and Bainimarama fled for his
life.

The incident led the army to believe that the government
had condoned the mutiny.

This has remained a source of resentment and a motivation for
Bainimarama's coup.

Is there room for resolution?

Laracy believes compromise is the only solution following the
showdown between government and military.

"It does seem that a challenge to the rule of law is a very
singularly serious matter but in the circumstances the government
would be very wise to heed the army, and I think we must all hope
that there's a compromise there," he says.

He says that in a perverse way, Fiji's military may have had to
break the law to achieve the ultimate good of keeping the coup
plotters of 2000 behind bars.